Tiankai Liu

School:

Age:
15

Native Language:
Chinese

Handedness:
right

Math Relatives:
My paternal grandfather was a high school physics teacher who graduated from Beida University. My parents are software engineers who graduated from Tsinghua University.

School subjects(s) most liked:
Math

School subjects(s) least liked:
Architecture -- It's fun, but too much work.

Hobbies/Interests:
I like to read literature and science, play Gluck and chess with my friends, play piano when I'm sad, and do math when I'm not sleeping.

Special achievement(s):
I beat the Gastropod to first place at the American Regions Math League National Competition in 2000.

Favorite book(s):

Favorite movie(s):

Planned college subjects:
something useful

Future career plans:
something useful

Favorite math fact, theorem or formula:
Cauchy's inequality

Why math is great:
It's SOO COOOOOL!

Personal Webpage:
http://www.geocities.com/buniakowski

People to thank:
I would like to thank Mrs. Fay-Zenk, Mr. Wooley, and Mrs. Haydon, my coaches for MATHCOUNTS; Mr. Fisico, a former coach of the Phillippine IMO team; Dr. Shubin, Dr. Hayes, and all the instructors at the San Jose Math Circle; Dr. Zeitz and all the instructors of the Berkeley Math Circle; Dr. Mira Bernstein, Svetoslav Savchev, and all the teachers of Canada/USA Mathcamp; Zvezda, Titu, Zuming, Razvan, Alex, Kiran, and Melanie, who taught me math at the Math Olympiad (Summer) Program; and Reid (duh) Barton, for his inspiration. I also feel obliged to thank my mom and dad.

Final message:
A big hearty thanks to Akamai, Clay, and Wolfram for making this IMO possible!

USA